<J. V c o « . „ <4 




0^ 




6* 




\» s • • > 

IQ\ <g> ^ oVjlXK* AT ^ •©IIS* 

■A 

• v** -"ate- ^/ .'i * 

Mat* 4>> ^ • 






s 



# 



** ^ -J|lp,* «** % •% 






o°" °<- *<! 










a4 










'*? : M 



^ ,v 









v^ 




. • A* ^ ^ •? Hi* ^ 



/ 






. « « 






A N 



.0 



X\%^,' 







v N 









J« _ u 






+ 



?«+* 



<0 * " * - 



-^ ^ ^ ^il?,* s ^ 



"■^A 

^ 











V* ^ t, ISm^ 7 o jP ^ * * 



^ 

V 




<& . N ^ ^> 






GGEQGGBGGEGEEEEE 3GCHBGUO GCBCBCPBCBPBi mm iGGEBEEBG 



The Causes of Secession 




An Essay Prepared by 

J. J. McSWAIN IN 1896 

WHILE A STUDENT AT 
SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE 




PUBLISHED AT 

Greenville, South Carolina 
January 1, 1917 



BBEEGEEEaaagaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaauaaaaaaaaaECBBOBBE 



The Causes of Secession 




An Essay Prepared by 

J. J. McSWAIN IN 1896 

WHILE A STUDENT AT 
SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE 




PUBLISHED AT 

Greenville, South Carolina 
January 1, 1917 






The American's Creed 



I believe in the United States of America as a government 
of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just pow- 
ers are derived from the consent of the governed ; a demo- 
cracy in a republic ; a sovereign nation of many sovereign 
states ; a perfect Union, one and inseparable ; established up- 
on those principles of freedom, equality, justice and hu- 
manity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and 
fortunes. 

I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, 
to support its constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its 
flag and to defend it against all enemies — William Tyler 
Page. 



CHft 
JAN U 1922 



a&-a72f 



ajy 



p>* 






STATEMENT 



The 500 copies of "The Causes of Secession" published 
in 191 7 were soon all called for by the wide demand. It was 
but a boyhood (perhaps also boyish) essay, but it states 
some of the striking facts of history and some of the un- 
answerable arguments. Many school teachers have told me 
they find it useful in teaching American History. The de- 
mand continues, and I am having the same printed again, in 
the hope that it may help to preserve the correct view of our 
Federal Government, which is in fact a dual system. Each 
government — State and Federal — is separate and sovereign 
within its sphere. Only thus can we hope to preserve the 
precious rights of local self-government to which largely the 
peculiar and powerful Anglo-Saxon civilization owes its life. 
That very self-reliance, individual initiative and inventive 
genius that have distinguished us in peace and war, take root 
and flourish in local self-government. 

To show the wide spread interest still felt and manifested 
in this subject, even in other sections of the country, I am 
publishing some of the letters received as a sort of appendix. 

The subject "Americanism" is on every tongue, but its def- 
inition is various and variable. To many it is a chauvinistic 
boast of military power. But in the hearts of the masses the 
ideals of freedom, justice and Democracy still survive as the 
most precious possessions of America. These ideals should 
be more generally expressed and defined in order that they 
may be more correctly applied in our political life. When 
the American people realized that in some vague but real 
way the life of these ideals were at stake in the World War, 
they freely and quickly offered all — wealth, comforts, blood, 
and even life — to save human freedom. The phrase "to make 
the world safe for democracy" was caught up and passed 
from heart to heart as the war-cry of this mighty modern 
crusade. 

Please let me suggest to the teachers (to whom principally 
this little volume will go) that the free public school is the 



nursery of patriotic citizenship, of a justly conceived Ameri- 
canism. Let me suggest some of the books I have found 
helpful in seeking to grasp the full spirit of Americanism, 
and especially let me urge that high school students learn 
"by heart" the "Declaration of Independence." Correctly in- 
terpreted it is the epitome of the world's best political 
thought. I need not here apologize for using the word 
"political." It has no suggestion of mere partisan activities. 
It refers to the combined governmental rights and duties of 
mankind struggling upward to the light and power of liberty, 
social equity and economic justice. But here are the books 
— "The American Spirit — a Basis for World Democracy" by 
Monroe and Miller ; "Changing America", by Ross ; "America 
Today", by Gauss; Vol. I "History of United States" by 
Hawthorne; "Ethics of Democracy" by Louis F. Post; "The 
Religion of a Democrat", by Charles Ferguson ; "The Soul 
of Democracy", by Griggs ; "National Ideals and Problems", 
by Fulton ; "Twentieth Century Crusade", by Lyman Abbott ; 
"American Political Ideas", bv John Fiske ; "The New De- 
mocracy", by Weyl ; "The Promise of American Life", by 
Croly ; "The New Freedom", by Woodrow Wilson ; and back 
of it ail "The Old Freedom" developed by the English people 
as told so vividly by J. R. Green in his "Short History of 
the English People", which the Czar of Russia once for- 
bade to be sold and circulated in his domains for fear it 
would suggest to his people how to make real their rising 
democratic aspirations. 

Teachers and students of history will also be interested to 
learn where the facts of history as viewed from the South- 
ern School of Constitutional Law are available ; they will 
find in pamphlet form much exceedingly valuable and highly 
instructive information in the following: "Aftermath of the 
Confederacy" by Hon. D. S. Henderson, Aiken, S. C. ; "Ad- 
dress" of Rev. Wm. E. Boggs, Columbia, S. C, April 22, 
1919; "A Vindication of the South" by Chief Justice Eugene 
B. Gary, Abbeville, S. C, and "A Collection of Addresses" 
by Miss Mildred Lewis Rutherford, of Athens, Ga. 

Some of the subjects taught in our schools and colleges are 
not expected to be remembered by the students, but their 
value consists principally in mental discipline. But such can- 



IV 



not be said of history. The study of history has high value, 
both as information and as training the mind to reason about 
human conduct, its causes and effects. The teacher who con- 
ceives of history as "the unfolding of the essence of spirit", 
who fills in the bare skeleton of facts and dates with flesh and 
blood and nerve of motive and of ideals ; of striving after 
some goal on the highway of human progress — such a teacher 
is an asset of highest value. No part of history can be 
properly studied isolated and separated from other history. 
The history of the people of the United States cannot be un- 
derstood unless the Old World setting from which it sprang, 
and the contemporaneous movements in the Old World, are 
also known and understood. It must not be assumed that 
our history started with the discovery of America, nor that 
the Declaration of Independence was the beginning of politi- 
cal freedom. 

I sincerely trust that history will find a larger place in our 
schools and colleges. For that reason, I am sending out this 
booklet to encourage the truth of American history, the whole 
truth, and nothing but the truth, by including that part which 
is too often left out of our school histories, and which re- 
lates to the causes and reasons for the secession of the 
Southern States. When the true value of American Consti- 
tutional liberty is understood, it will be realized that our fa- 
thers of the South were fully in line with their fathers of 
Revolutionary days, who were in turn maintaining the prin- 
ciples of Anglo-Saxon local government, for which many 
generations of Englishmen had struggled and fought, and 
some of them died, in that "snug-little, tight-little island" 
just west of Continental Europe. Then trace that same crav- 
ing of the human heart for freedom and justice and fairness 
back to the Teutonic clans of northern Europe, and draw a 
great lesson for our nation today by showing how through 
false ideals of national greatness they were subjected to the 
slavish system of militarism, which reduced those who were 
once pioneers in liberty, to willing tools of the ambition of 
the Hohenzollerns. When this long chain of cause and effect 
once takes hold of the mind of a student, he then can grasp 
how the Allies in the recent World War, we and our Allies, 
were battling for the best in civilization. Then the student will 



feel the warming and moving conviction that, "freedom's 
battle, once begun, though baffled oft, is ever won." 

During the recent hostilities I was associated not only 
with men from the two Carolinas and Tennessee, but also 
with men from Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana, and 
later with men from Kentucky, Ohio, Kansas, Washington, 
Oregon, and Wyoming, and in fact nearly every state in the 
union. I was impressed with the rather confused ideas as 
to the scope of our Federal Government that prevailed in 
the minds of many of my associates. It seemed to be as- 
sumed by such that the Federal Government has power to do 
any thing that a majority of those in contral decide to do. 
However, at the Constitutional Convention of the American 
Legion held at Minneapolis, in November, 1919, after a 
rather intimate association with picked men from each state 
in the union, on two important Committees, and after the 
question of local self-government in important matters re- 
lating to the Legion had been thoroughly discussed, I found 
that the members readily yielded to the force of the argu- 
ment and acknowledged the soundness of the principle that 
Federal authority should be limited to matters of general 
welfare, and should not interfere with local concerns. There- 
fore, we were gratified that the organic law of the American 
Legion was formulated after a general analogy to our Fed- 
eral system. 

It is therefore gratifying to report that this division and 
distribution of powers between the State Governments and 
the National Government are being acknowledged as sound, 
not only upon historic and constitutional grounds, but as 
sound and wise on grounds of expediency and economic 
principle. 

J. J. McSwain. 



vi 



INTRODUCTION 



This essay was written in the summer of 1896 and carefully 
revised in the fall of that year. In the spring of 1896 the 
Wade Hampton Chapter of the United Daughters of the 
Confederacy of Columbia, South Carolina, announced to the 
students of the South Carolina College that it would give a 
medal to that student submitting the best essay on the sub- 
ject of "The Causes of the War of Secession." I was then 
in my twenty-first year and determined to contest for the 
medal. After commencement, I immediately began to study. 
I found in the library of my father, Dr. E. T. McSwain, the 
splendid work of Jefferson Davis, "The Rise and Fall of 
the Confederacy." I had already partly read Volume I of Cal- 
houn's works which I had found in the home of my grand- 
father, Captain J. J. McGowan. These two works were 
thoroughly studied, and in like manner the congressional de- 
bates between Calhoun, Webster and Hayne, and other lead- 
ers were studied. The entire vacation was spent upon this 
research and the compilation of notes. 

Upon returning in September to resume the work of the 
college year I fortunately obtained from Rev. J. William 
Flinn, D. D., a book entitled "The Republic of Republics." 
The author of this book I cannot remember and have been 
unable to find a copy of it since, but any one will confer a 
favor upon me by furnishing me with the information as to 
the author and where a copy may be obtained, as I should 
delight to read it once more. My impression is that it is a 
logical and comprehensive argument. I was informed that 
it was originally prepared to be used by counsel for Jefferson 
Davis upon the trial for treason, for which he stood indicted 
in a Federal Court. 

When the idea first came of publishing this essay in pam- 
phlet form on the twentieth anniversary of its preparation, 
I had hoped to amplify and enlarge the same as a result of 
subsequent study. However time has forbidden any such 
labor and the same goes forth as it was originally written 



vu 



and passed upon by the committee of award without the 
change of a single word. That committee was composed of 
LeRoy F. Youmans, H. Cowper Patton and Andrew Craw- 
ford, leading members of the Columbia Bar. The presenta- 
tion of the medal was made in the hall of the House of 
Representatives in the State Capitol by Chief Justice Henry 
Mclver before the joint session of the Legislature, the Gov- 
ernor, the Supreme Court, the Trustees of the South Carolina 
College, the Faculty, the students and the public, on January 
19, 1897. I understand that this same Chapter of the United 
Daughters of the Confederacy has annually conferred a 
medal for the best essay upon some phase of Southern his- 
tory since that time, to some student of the South Carolina 
University submitting the best essay. This is a worthy 
practice, calculated to arouse the young men to study history 
and to promote patriotism. 

My main motive in publishing this essay of boyhood days 
is to furnish to the young people of our State some of the 
facts that justify the War of Secession. After making num- 
erous addresses before bodies of Confederate veterans and 
having often in such addresses used some of the material 
found in this essay, I have been approached by numbers of 
veterans and their sons and asked for the authenticity of 
some of the statements therein made and in connection with 
such conversations, I often mentioned this essay, and have 
been urged frequently to publish same. 

The burden of my address on all such occasions has been 
to impress the thought that there was an honest and con- 
scientious conviction among the American people of all sec- 
tions, based upon historical facts and documents, that the pri- 
mary allegiance of the citizens was to the states, and only 
secondarily to the United States. Hence, in the event of a 
conflict between the State authority and Federal authority, 
the citizens were bound, as for instance Colonel Robert E. 
Lee felt bound, to obey the call of the State as determined 
by a majority of the people of the State. This aspect and 
view of the Constitutional obligation of the individual citizen 
was not sectional, and was not an original conception of the 
people of the South, as shown by the facts mentioned in this 
essay. Since there was this honest view of the allegiance of 



Vlll 



the citizens, entertained by practically all of the leaders in 
the movement to establish the Federal Republic at different 
times in our history, no honest man can say that the citizens 
of the states which seceded, and the soldiers and sailors of 
the Confederate States, were traitors, or rebels. While this 
question has been settled by force of arms and thus settled 
forever (a settlement acquiesced in by surviving soldiers of 
the Confederacy and by their sons and grandsons), yet such 
a settlement by war does not obliterate the truths of history, 
and the force of the logic based upon the facts of history 
and documentary evidence. 

I conceive it to be impossible to understand properly the 
course of American history without understanding and ap- 
preciating the contentions of the constitutional doctrine 
known as "States' Rights." This doctrine is in full force to- 
day and maintained by both the State Courts and Federal 
Courts with full vigor and definiteness, in all respects as con- 
tended for by the leaders of the school of thought headed 
by John C. Calhoun with the sole exception as to the right of 
a state or of states to secede. In this respect the courts 
would doubtless follow the decision of the court of Mars 
and would doubtless hold that no state has a constitutional 
right to recall that portion of her sovereignty which was 
originally conferred by her. Naturally this view of "States' 
Rights" as to secession was rendered less and less plausible 
by the fact that nearly seventy-five per cent of the states of 
the union have been admitted since the original thirteen states 
erected the Federal Government. Most of the new states 
have been carved out of territory which belonged to the Fed- 
eral Government and as to these states the logic of history 
seems to be that the rights of state-hood were conferred by 
the Federal Government. This fact is quite different from 
the positions of the thirteen original states, which were 
separate and independent and voluntarily elected to join each 
other in the formation of a Federal Government. 

The status of the states formed out of territories may be 
also contrasted with the status of the State of Texas, which 
was an independent republic with an organized government, 
and voluntarily affiliated herself by annexation and admis- 
sion with the other equal sovereign states already in the con- 



IX 



federation. About fifteen years after Texas had thus as* 
sociated herself with the American states she decided to 
withdraw her affiliation, by secession. Logically it would 
seem strange that she was not permitted to do so ; by equal 
force of logic honest students of history cannot charge that 
the secession of Texas made her people traitors. 

In a broad view of American history the War of Secession 
between American states may be regarded as one of the 
struggles of Anglo-Saxon people for independence, individual 
liberty and local self-government. A very fine interpretation 
of American history is to be found in a small volume con- 
sisting of a series of lectures delivered by Henry Van Dyke 
in France, on "The Spirit of America." This book might 
well be used as a text in our high schools and colleges and 
would furnish a key to a comprehensive understanding of the 
movements in American history from the earliest settlement 
to the present time. I am persuaded that the people of the 
Northern and Eastern sections of our republic are equally de- 
voted with the people of the South to the principles of local 
self-government and individual liberty, which is but another 
way of expressing the doctrine of "States' Rights" with the 
exception of secession. I am quite sure any feeling of 
hostility towards the people of those sections no longer exists, 
and that there is the same love for the ideals of the Federal 
Republic among the people of the South that there was when 
our independence was achieved and when we joined with 
people of other sections in erecting a Federal Government to 
promote the general welfare and to provide for the common 
defense. 

In this broad view the soldiers who followed Lee, Jack- 
son, Johnston, and Hampton and other gallant leaders of 
Southern arms and of .Confederate counsels, were patriots of 
the same sort as the soldiers who followed Washington, Lee, 
Greene, LaFayette, Steuben, Marion, Sumter, Pickens and all 
the other leaders of the Colonial arms and counsels which 
dared to defy and resist the action of a British Parliament 
in violating the Anglo-Saxon right by inheritance of local 
self-government. In a broader view both these movements 
in American thought and action are lined up with the facts of 
English history and with the struggles of the people of that 



"Snug Little Island," for a government representative of the 
convictions of the people, which finally culminated in Magna 
Carta, the Petition of Right, Bill of Rights and Habeas 
Corpus. Indeed, the movement for liberty, for a government 
that does not violate human justice, did not cease in England 
when American history branches off from English history. 
It must not be forgotten that the colonists had such friends 
in the British Parliament as William Pitt and Edmund 
Burke. It must not be forgotten that England has had her 
Richard Cobden, her John Bright, her Gladstone, her Asquith 
and her Lloyd-George. Therefore, if the facts of Southern 
history are studied and understood in this broad way, such 
understanding will be the key to an appreciation of all Am- 
erican history and of English history and through them to 
the study of all history — that record of the struggles of hu- 
manity for the achievement of her ideals, some of which 
are liberty, equality before the law, a just reward for all 
labor, a fair opportunity in life for every man, and of all 
those customs, morals and virtues comprehended by the term 
"Civilization." 

In order to arouse some interest in the study of history 
among our young people, in order to show that the present 
generation are not the sons and daughters of rebels and 
traitors, in order to show that the four years' war from 1861 
to 1865 was a great human sacrifice of life and treasure 
placed upon the altar of human liberty, in order to show that 
the belief in the right of secession was not sectional and not 
selfish, in order to show that the descendants of the soldiers 
of the Confederacy need never apologize for secession, but 
may proudly explain its place in history, I have decided to 
publish and to distribute free the following effort of the 
Southern school boy, whose early impressions and convictions 
have not been altered by the calmer thought of manhood. 

J. J. McSwain. 
Greenville, S. C, January 1, 191 7. 



XI 



"The Causes That Led To The Secession of 
The Southern States From The Union" 



Before any body of society can rightfully take a step of 
so grave a nature that war, terrible and cruel, is liable to re- 
sult, two questions must be answered affirmatively : Is it 
right? and, is it necessary? So, in reviewing the influences 
by which the great body of Southern people was induced to 
withdraw from political fellowship with the North, we must 
determine the constitutional right, and the economic and po- 
litical necessity. These influences, stated in the logical as 
well as the chronological order, of causation, are geographical 
and political. It was the difference of ideas and opinions 
brought about by industrial diversity that determined the 
peculiar nature of the constitution in many important re- 
spects. It was the difference in construing and interpreting 
the constitutional provisions that brought on the many bitter 
political struggles. 

But in Society no causes ever operate singly or alone ; they 
mutually act and react, so that the course of a political com- 
munity is always the resultant of many diverse and conflict- 
ing forces. Thus, in our history we find opposing the senti- 
ment of separate State indentity a tendency to strengthen the 
federal government, to unify the different sections, despite 
their respective peculiarities, under one centralized authority, 
administered from a common centre, endowed with the sole 
and absolute allegiance of its citizens. But we are now to 
trace those forces which, more than neutralizing the latter 
tendencies, finally brought about the disruption of the union 
and arrayed section against section, citizen against citizen, 
and brother against brother, in one of the most terrific com- 
bats on record. Let us pass, then, first to the constitutional 
justification of Secession, and second to the political prov- 
ocation. 

The relations sustained by the states toward one another 
according the Constitution has been the great point of con- 
tention; happily all parties admit that the Constitution is the 



only evidence of any political connection between the states. 
Now in the construction of any instrument, two sources of 
evidence must be considered, the history of its formation, 
and its verbal contents. Again, it is admitted that no single 
clause of the Constitution is devoted to a statement of the 
precise governmental relations between the states. In dis- 
cussing the subject, we shall consider by whom the Consti- 
tution was established, its nature as understood by contem- 
poraries, and for what it was established, as historical evi- 
dence, next, we shall consider how it was established as re- 
vealed according to its own terms. 

In determining by whom the Constitution was established, 
we must review the relation sustained by the people of the 
several colonies, in the colonial condition, after the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and under the Articles of Confedera- 
tion. The various colonizing enterprises were absolutely in- 
dependent of each other. The chief methods by which settle- 
ments were made in the new world were voluntary associa- 
tion, proprietary regulation, and direct royal supervision. 
Owing to distance and lack of means of communication, the 
people of one colony did not know those of another colony. 
They differed not only in the matter of government control 
but often in nationality, language, habits, religious senti- 
ments, and social refinement. Thus the American colonies 
did not grow up as one aggregated community but as several 
separate and distinct bodies. The Declaration of Independ- 
ence declared that the colonies "are and ought to be free and 
independent states." In the treaty of peace of 1783 England 
acknowledged the independence not of one country, "the 
United States," but of the thirteen separate states each being 
specifically named; and they severally assumed the position, 
duties and responsibilities of Sovereign States. Under the 
Articles of Confederation the several states are bound by "a 
firm league of friendship" to repress all force offered to them 
from any cause whatever. Furthermore it was declared that 
"each state retains its sovereignity, freedom and independence 
and every power jurisdiction and right not by these articles 
expressly delegated to the United States in Congress As- 
sembled." Thus unqualified independence was reserved to 
each state. 



On account of confusion in the commercial regulations and 
of difficulty in paying off the national debt incurred in the 
Revolution, a revision of the Articles of Confederation was 
deemed necessary, and a convention, composed of delegates 
appointed by the states individually, met in Philadelphia in 
May, 1787. This convention knew very well the limitations 
of its power, and merely reported the result of its labors to 
the general Congress. Until ratified by the states the Con- 
stitution was a mere suggestion, a bare recommendation hav- 
ing no more force than an ordinary magazine article. Dis- 
regarding those provisions of the Articles of Confederation 
which declared "The Union shall be perpetual" and "any 
charge shall be agreed to by every state," the Convention pro- 
vided in the Constitution it framed that the ratification of 
nine states out of the existing thirteen would be sufficient to 
establish the Constitution "between the states so ratifying the 
same." Thus it is evident that the Constitution was ratified 
by, and received every vestige of its power by virtue of its 
having been ratified by free, sovereign and independent states. 

There has been endless discussion as to how its framers 
regarded the Constitution ; contemporary evidence is always 
best, as it must be assumed that the architects understand the 
edifice. The question in hand is one of fact, not of reason, 
and the facts must appear on the record. Generally speaking, 
there were two classes in the constitutional convention of 
1787; one wished to retain the administration of almost all 
important powers with the states, while the other wished to 
establish a strong, centralized, general government, wherein 
the states would be mere districts for political convenience. 
That the latter theory was rejected will be shown by the ad- 
missions of its strongest advocates. George Washington, the 
president of the Convention, said that, "New York had on the 
21st of June, 1788, acceded to the new confederacy." Ben- 
jamin Franklin regarded the Constitution as a compact be- 
tween sovereign states, and proposed in the Convention the 
establishment of the Senate in order to secure "the Sov- 
ereignties of the individual states," John Dickinson calls the 
new political system "a confederacy of republics," in which 
the sovereignty of each state is represented. Gouveneur 
Morris, a most distinguished member of the Convention, long 



afterwards declared, "The Constitution was a compact, not 
between individuals, but between political societies." James 
Wilson spoke of the general government as "a federal body 
of our own creation," and declared that the object of the 
Constitution was "to confederate anew on better principles." 
Samuel Adams declared that the reservation in the X amend- 
ment of all powers not delegated was the equivalent of the 
provision of the Articles of Confederation that "each state 
retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence." Roger 
Sherman declared that "the government of the U. S. was in- 
stituted by a number of sovereign states." Oliver Ellsworth 
spoke of the Union as a "confederacy," and stated that "the 
Constitution does not attempt to coerce sovereign bodies — 
states in their political capacity." John Marshal, the most 
celebrated jurist of his time, deemed that a state might not be 
made to answer before a Federal Court, and added that "it 
is not rational to suppose that a sovereign power should be 
dragged before a Federal Court." George Cabot in his argu- 
ment for the adoption of the Constitution said : "The Senate 
is a representation of the sovereignty of the individual 
states." We now come to the expression of the three ablest 
commentators on the Constitution, who pleaded for its adop- 
tion. Alexander Hamilton said : "If the new plan be adopt- 
ed, the Union will still be in theory and in fact, an association 
of states, as a confederacy." He also said that the system 
must also satisfy all "the parties to the compact." 
James Madison emphatically declares that "the states are re- 
garded as distinct and independent sovereigns by the Consti- 
tution proposed." John Jay favored the states continuing 
united under one Federal Government and called the system 
established by the Constitution "a Union of States." These, 
then, are the facts for which we asked ; not creatures of un- 
bridled imagination, not fictitious fancies, but the deliberate 
expressions of the wisest statesmen and noblest patriots of 
the time, of every party and of every section. 

The next question and last one under the head of historical 
aid to construction is — for what was the Constitution estab- 
lished? Of course the preamble expresses the purpose in 
general terms, but behind all this there was a force and in- 
fluence not evident on the face of the Constitution. The res- 



olution of Congress calling a convention expressed the pur- 
pose of revising the Articles of Confederation so as to "ren- 
der the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of 
the Government and the preservation of the Union." An 
analysis of this passage shows that the Articles were called 
a Constitution, thus rebutting Webster's famous question, 
"What does it call itself?", thereby implying that the word 
Constitution is applicable only to an original self sufficient 
government over a single people united on the principle of 
social compact. But here we find the Articles of Confedera- 
tion called "a Constitution," which all admit to have been a 
compact between sovereign parties. The analysis also shows 
that this government, which declared in terms of its organic 
law to be "perpetual" was in great danger of being dissolved. 
The exigency of government referred to was lack of funds, 
the Federal Congress had contracted debts, but had no means 
of raising funds except by requistions upon the states, which 
were often slow to respond. It must have money and if not 
from states then from individuals ; but the Federal Govern- 
ment could take no cognizance of individuals; therefore, the 
Federal authority was made to act upon individuals, but only 
within the limits of the powers delegated in the Constitution. 
Again, the power of regulating commerce had been reserved 
to several states under the Confederation, and these were 
often conflicting and brought on general confusion. There- 
fore, it was decided to repose the general power over foreign 
and inter-state commerce in the Federal Legislature. As a 
comparison will show, these were the main additions to Fed- 
eral power made by the Constitution of 1787; it was merely 
a reorganization of the government for the more effective 
administration of the powers already delegated. For con- 
venience and safety, executive and judicial powers were 
granted commensurate with those of the Legislature. The 
fact that power over individuals is yielded in certain pre- 
scribed limits is an eloquent recognition of state sovereignty. 
The Confederation was a good thing, but it took money in 
order to exist ; yet money could not be forced from the states, 
because they were answerable at no court. So, the Federal 
power is made to have a limited operation on individuals in 
order to maintain the Federal Government. The states were 



to pursue their independent courses unrestricted except by 
the self imposed limitations of the Federal Constitution. It 
was not provided in the new compact that the Union shall 
be "perpetual," as under the old. Thus, the purpose of the 
Constitution of 1787 was not to supplant limited with abso- 
lute authority, not to change the relation between the con- 
tracting states as parties, not to merge the people of several 
disinct and independent communities into one aggregated cen- 
tralized authority but to provide for the effective administra- 
tion of the Federal powers already delegated. 

But it may be objected that the object was "the preserva- 
tion of the Union." How? Not by destroying all Union in 
consolidation, not by holding the parts together by military 
force ; but by rendering the Union beneficial, by planting it 
in a healthy public opinion, and by showing its common coun- 
sels worthy of common pride and support. The purpose was 
to preserve the Union by preserving the states in all their 
integrity; when these conditions shall have been fulfilled 
there will be "a veritable indissoluble Union of indestructible 
states." 

We must next pass to the consideration of how the Consti- 
tution was established; the evidence of this is found in its 
own terms. The Constitution was submitted to Conventions 
representing the sovereign people of each state, to be ap- 
proved or rejected as they individually saw fit. The ratifi- 
cation of nine states was to set it in operation, but only "be- 
tween the states so ratifying." There never has been known 
any such community as the "United States" in the aggregate, 
as a social unit. "We the people" necessarily means the peo- 
ple of the states separately. The Constitution might have 
been set in operation by less than a numerical majority of all 
the people of all the states, for the four states, Virgina, 
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, comprised 
a little over half of the total three millions in the thirteen. 
The other nine states a numerical minority, might have start- 
ed the Constitutional machinery; most assuredly in the name 
of "we the people," but only among the people of the states 
so ratifying. Thus we finally conclude that the Constitution 
was established by free and independent states, that its fram- 
ers understood it to be a compact between the states as con- 



tracting parties, that it was established for the purpose of 
preserving the states in their individual integrity, and that 
each state by ratification voluntarily made the Constitution 
the supreme law in its territory, as to powers thereby con- 
ferred. 

Let us consider the nature of those independent states just 
mentioned. A state is its citizens, and citizens are society. 
Protection is due the citizen from society, and allegiance is 
due society from the citizen, since according to the American 
theory sovereignty inheres in the people or society alone. 
But the corporate states are the only known units of society 
in this country. Therefore, the sole and primary allegiance 
of the citizen is to the state, and he fights for the "Stars and 
Stripes" only because his mother state by her ratification of 
the Constitution commanded it. Rebellion is resistance to 
the rightful sovereign and all who assist rebellion are trait- 
ors. Therefore, Lee and Davis and all the Southern men 
that so heroically fought and bled for their rights and in- 
terests, were not rebels and traitors, but noble patriots, war- 
ring in defense of their sovereign states. 

The general government established by the several inde- 
pendent states, is of the nature of an agent. The Constitu- 
tion carefully confines itself to speaking of powers and these 
alone were delegated, as sovereignty neither was nor could 
be surrendered. These powers of the Constitution are ex- 
plicitly said to be delegated and limited, and evidently could 
not have been delegated by the general government for it 
was created by the Constitution. All discretionary powers 
reside in the sovereign. Consequently, no allegiance is due 
the Federal Government except as the the state commands. 

The nature of a conditional compact is evident on the face 
of the Constitution. All the states were leagued together un- 
der the Articles of Confederation, and a scheme is projected 
to the effect that, if nine states can be induced to enter into 
a new league, the old will be subverted. Each of the nine 
states called a convention which solemnly ratified one Con- 
stitution while already bound to another in "perpetual union," 
each did not know whether or not any other states would 
ratify. The virtual effect is this, the ratification of each state 
is conditional on the ratification of eight others. Therefore, 



the ratification of each is a proposition which being answered 
by the others with ratification becomes a contract. The fail- 
ure of any state, then, to observe any stipulation of the con- 
tract would have the same effect upon the others as failure 
to ratify would have had, in the first instance, in short, the 
state would be relieved of any obligations assumed by ratifi- 
cation. This it is seen involves the essence of secession, and 
we will show that secession under the above condition is 
necessarily legitimate. Every breach of law must have its 
legal punishment, administered by force if need be. But the 
states cannot be legally coerced; because first, it is necessary 
that so important a power be expressly given; second, the 
fathers of the Constitution held that the states were not to 
be coerced ; and third, the making of Federal power operate 
on individuals proves that states were not to be coerced, as 
already seen. Therefore, secession was no breach of law, 
since there is no legal power to prevent it. Again it must be 
conceded that a legal right implies a legal remedy. The 
states have some rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and 
a right to all powers not delegated. Suppose the former be 
disregarded, and the latter encroached upon. Where is the 
remedy of the state? Certainly not in the Union, for a sel- 
fish and despotic majority still encroaches and abuses. She 
must seek her rights, and find the remedy for the wrong in- 
flicted upon her, outside of the Union. 

How could a state, singly and alone, ratify a general, Fed- 
eral Constitution? The powers of the Federal Government 
concern each state individually; they concern all aggregately. 
Now, each state, acting in its sovereign capacity, could estab- 
lish one, two or more systems of government, differing as 
to a sphere for the regulation of its own affairs. Thus, the 
Federal Constitution is as much the Constitution of each state 
as its separate Constitution ; and every citizen owes it obedi- 
ience for the same reason that he must obey the State Gov- 
ernment because the sovereign people of the state has com- 
manded it. It easily follows that there is no such thing as a 
separate, self-existent Federal Government, but it represents 
a part of the power inherent in the people of each state. 
The general government is, therefore, the creature of the 
states; it resulted from the accessions of individual states to 



8 



a compact, and is not "made the final and exclusive judge of 
its powers, but as in all other cases of compact between part- 
ies having no common judge, each state has an equal right to 
judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and 
measure of redress." Whenever, then, the operation of the 
Federal Government becomes prejudicial to the interest of 
any state by virtue of its powers being perverted, may not 
that state, acting in the same capacity by which Federal pow- 
ers were brought into its bounds, revoke its sanctions and re- 
call the powers delegated to the general government by its 
own free will? It results from the nature of the Constitu- 
tion, as well as from the tenth amendment, that it must be 
strictly construed. All that is not given is denied. It is 
sufficient for us to ask for the article and section where the 
sovereignty of individual states was surrendered to the Fed- 
eral Government. Surely it was necessary to mention so im- 
portant a fact ; surely so important and dear a thing as the 
freedom and self-government of a people is not to be hazard- 
ed on implication, and left a prey to the greed of the "in- 
terpreters." No ; Samuel Adams was right when he said 
that the tenth amendment was equivalent to the provision un- 
der the "Articles of Confederation" that "each state retains 
its sovereignty, freedom, and independence." It was Presi- 
dent Buchanan who said: "Our Union rests upon public 
opinion, and can never be cemented by the blood of brothers 
shed in Civil War. Congress may possess many means of 
preserving it by conciliation, but the sword was not placed in 
their hand to preserve it by force." Against the solemn de- 
termination of a state to separate itself from the others, there 
is no legal remedy. The power that gives can take away. 
The power of repeal is commensurate with that of enactment. 
The state voluntarily made itself subject to the Federal Con- 
stitution ; may it not by the same power withdraw its con- 
sent? It was not necessary then, that there should be an ex- 
press right of secession; but to rebut this claim, there must 
have been an express denial of the right. 

The following is a summary of the points sustained up to 
this stage of the discussion : 

I. The people are the states, and the states constitute 
whatever nation there is ; the general government is the agent 



of the states by means of which they exercise federal self- 
government. 

II. Federal acts outside of the delegation are void, and 
to be resisted as usurpations. 

III. The Federal Government is absolutely without 
authority to coerce states. 

IV. The states, as sovereign societies, have the natural and 
unlimited right of self-defense. 

V. To defend and obey the state is the duty of every 
citizen. 

It has been happily said, "Use and wont make law." The 
best law is but crystalized custom. What has been the habit 
of thought and action in regard to the right of secession? 
The war of the Revolution was fought for the principle of 
local self-government, and this sentiment was kept alive in 
the minds of the people by the annual fourth of July celebra- 
tions. As already seen, the colonies united themselves in a 
firm league of friendship, which was to be perpetual, and 
any amendment was to receive the consent of every state. 
Yet for well-nigh trivial reasons, it was deemed fit to form 
publicly and without fear of reproach, a scheme whereby 
nine of the states might secede, despite the prohibition of the 
Articles of Confederation that no agreement should be form- 
ed between states. They did not even observe the formality 
of each state's individually seceding, as it had acceded, so 
plain was the absolute and unqualified independence of each 
in the minds of the people. And in what clause of the Con- 
stitution is the change of status between the states declared? 
Surely its importance demands notice. As a matter of fact 
it was not changed, and it was so understood by the leading 
men of the time. John Marshall said: "It is the people (of 
the states) that give the power, and can take it away. The 
government is not supported by force, but depending on our 
free will." Chancellor Pendleton, allaying the fears that the 
power might be stressed, declared : "We will assemble in 
convention (as a state) and wholly recall our delegated 
powers." James Madison in speaking of the injury liable to 
result from a perversion of powers declared that the powers, 
"being derived from the people of the United States (would) 
be resumed by them." And the list of such witnesses as 



10 



James Iredell, Roger Sherman, James Wilson, Fisher Ames, 
Edmund Randolph, and Alexander Hamilton might be ex- 
tended to the effect that the power which created the gov- 
ernment can destroy it. As the government was established 
by the states individually and separately, they alone can act 
in its dissolution. This was the undoubted sentiment ex- 
pressed by the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of 1798, 
while the government was yet young. These resolutions 
brought down no shower of reproaches and charge of treason 
upon their authors ; they were known to be true. They were 
echoed back from the people by the election of their in- 
spirer, Thomas Jefferson, to the office of President. 

Again in 1803 the purchase of Louisiana from France 
awakened sectional jealously to such an extent that many 
threats of secession were made in the New England states. 
Timothy Pickering, a very prominent Federal official during 
the early administration, wrote that "I will rather anticipate a 
new Confederacy," and "that this can be done without spill- 
ing a drop of blood, I have little doubt." And it was de- 
clared in the House of Representatives by Josiah Quincy in 
reference to the admission of Louisiana as a state ; that, 
"If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is a 
virtual dissolution of the Union." In 1814 when Northern 
commerce was being ravaged by war, a convention of dele- 
gates elected by the Legislatures of Massachusetts, Rhode 
Island, and Connecticut, met in Hartford, and held secret 
sessions for many weeks. For a long time the minutes were 
not published, but in their address to the New England States 
they say: "Some new form of Confederacy should be sub- 
stituted among those states which intend to maintain a Fed- 
eral relation to each other." 

The project for the annexation of Texas in 1845 revived 
disunonist sentiments at the North, and the Legislature of 
Massachusetts passed a resolution that the attempted annexa- 
tion, if successful, would tend to "drive these (Northern) 
states into a dissolution of the Union," and further that the 
act, even if passed, "would have no binding force upon the 
people of Massachusetts." Yet these threats received not the 
stigma of treason. It is, therefore, evident that the men of 
the South lacked neither precedent nor instruction from 



11 



their Northern brethren to justify their course of 1861. The 
Constitution being regarded as a compact between sovereign 
states, the disregard of its stipulations by some of the states 
is considered to relieve the others of their obligations accord- 
ing to the principle of unlimited contracts. And when a state 
chooses to consider herself relieved, where is the Constitu- 
tional power to prevent her sovereign will from being acted 
out? There being no legal power to prevent it, secession as 
a means of self-preservation must be legitimate, and conse- 
quently, those individual citizens that defend the course of 
their state by arms, even against Federal power, are by no 
means traitors, but the truest of patriots. 
£"We must now pass to what was described in the beginning 
as the "political provocation of Secession," the proximate 
cause. The men of the Southern States were too noble 
minded and true to duty to take so grave a step as Secession 
on the bare grounds of economic expediency, or for political 
revenge ; their action must be based on the assurance of truth 
and right. For this reason, then, has so much time and space 
been devoted to establishing the right of Secession under 
the existing form of government. The right is always a 
primary and essential condition of action. Thus, what at 
first sight might have seemed a justification instead of an 
examination of causative influences, appears a conditioning 
element, without which any action by the South would have 
been not secession, but rebellion and revolution. Let us now 
address ourselves to those accidental causes and occasions 
that drove the states to the exercise of this right. 
\There have always been two tendencies in the formation 
of political parties of this country, characterized respectively 
by an inclination to a strict and loose construction of the 
Constitution/ The latter tendency attaches to the party in 
power, who have all to gain by an enlargement of Federal 
jurisdiction; while the former is manifested by a minority, 
who have all to lose by a perversion of the delegated powers! 
Thus, there could be but two political parties in the main, 
and we shall next show how these at once assumed a sec- 
tional character. The operation of the law governing the 
formation of political parties is as inevitable as that of the 
law of gravity. Identity of interests, and similarity of 



12 



thought and custom, make it easy for those in the same and 
contiguous districts to form a party; absence of these condi- 
tions of course makes it difficult. As party violence in- 
creases, stirred by a desire for the honors and emoluments of 
government, the temptation to appeal to all l6cal feelings, in- 
terests and prejudices becomes stronger and stronger; finally 
the parties become exclusively sectional. Especially would 
this become so in a country of such vast extent as ours, vary- 
ing climate and, consequently in occupations ; thus during the 
period under discussion the North was pre-eminently a manu- 
facturing and 'commercial district, while the South was agri- 
cultural. So, we find sectional jealously very strong in the 
convention of 1787, and this body made every effort so to 
distribute representation that the equilibrium between the 
sections might be maintained. The whole political history of 
the country may be analytically reduced to a contest between 
rival sections; the temporarily successful seeking to secure 
permanent tenure by holding Federal powers, and thus to 
enrich its leaders, the minority striving to protect itself 
against the encroachment of the majority by holding it_ to a 
close literal execution of the Constitution, and for this pur- 
pose, they resorted to the States as the original source of all 
sovereign power, asking the States to declare the rightful 
limits of their creature. The powers of government were di- 
vived between the State and Federal governments, and 
the question was ever rife as to which should decide on the 
extent of their respective authorities. According to one 
view, Congress was supreme over every State law. Accord- 
ing to the others, the States as sovereigns were the final 
judges of their own, and consequently, of Federal powers. 
The two opposing sections, the North and the South, as- 
sumed the championship of these opposing views. 

An analysis of our political history up to i860 will show 
that all great measures that affected the popular mind, may 
be grouped under three heads: (1) The adjustment of the 
Tarriff, (2) the acquisition of territory and admission of 
States, (3) slavery legislation. Around each of these heads is 
grouped a series of events that embittered party enmities, and 
thus estranged the two great sections so that finally they 
could no longer sustain the relation of political associates. 



13 



Congress is empowered to lay and collect imports in order 
to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and 
general welfare of the United States. There early arose a 
policy among the various parties representing the Northern 
section to appropriate money from the Federal treasury to 
build public works and make public improvements in general. 
This was opposed by the South as unwarranted by the Con- 
stitution, which allowed imports and taxation for necessary 
revenue alone. But as the North was fast becoming nat- 
urally a manufacturing district it was soon found that she 
could control the price of the manufactured articles, if the 
competition of foreign goods were cut off by high import 
duties. This greed grew by what it fed upon, until the 
"protection of home industries" became a popular fad with 
New England politicians. We are not concerned with the 
merits or demerits of the principle of protection, as a na- 
tional policy. The pertinent fact remains that the law in 
violation of the Constitution was imposed by a heedless ma- 
pority of one section, to the injury and oppression of the 
other section. Finally S. C. believed the operation of this 
system so disastrous to her agricultural interests and the per- 
version of the Constitution so palpable and flagrant, that she 
passed an ordinance of nullification whereby the unconstitu- 
tional law was made inoperative within her bounds. Her ac- 
tion was based upon the principle that, being unwarranted by 
the Constitution it was no law, and it became the State with 
whom all residuary powers remained so to declare it. A 
compromise was effected in Congress for the gradual reduc- 
tion of duties, and S. C, having gained her point, repealed 
her ordinance. 

The regulation of the Tariff was often afterwards the 
bone of contention in Congressional disputes, which had their 
baneful effect upon the popular mind. We are not now con- 
cerned with establishing the unconstitutionality of such laws. 
The fact that they were respectively supported and opposed 
by the two sections almost to a man, is very reprehensible, 
and is indicative of evil results to all that know to what ex- 
treme violence party feeling may rise when parties become 
sectional. The course to which S. C. felt herself driven in 



14 



1832 opened a gaping breach between the two sections that 
has never been closed. 

The question of enlarging the territorial dominion of the 
country was always an occasion for sectional enmity to 
manifest itself, no matter whether it were the acquisition of 
new territory or the admission of a State, the party question 
was — whose side will it strengthen? The following facts 
will show how completely the interests of the whole country, 
the general welfare were prostituted to those of party as 
voiced by the sections. In 1803 the general government 
under the administration of Mr. Jefferson purchased the 
Louisiana territory from France in order to secure the un- 
restricted navigation of the Miss, river for the new States 
being formed in the vast north-west territory. This broad 
and beneficent policy was bounded by no geographical lines. 
But how was this proposition received by the North? The 
purchase was violently opposed solely because it was South- 
ern territory. This was avowed by Col. Pickering when in 
opposing the purchase he said : "The influence of our 
(Northern) part of the Union must be diminished by the 
acquisition of more weight at the other end of the extremity." 
Louisiana was a slave holding State, yet no objection was 
made to this. It was the mere apprehension of Northern 
loss of influence that made Col. Pickering hope for a new 
Confederacy to be peaceably formed. Again in 181 1 when 
the bill for the admission of Louisiana as a State was pend- 
ing, Josiah Quincy declared that the passage of the bill would 
be a virtual dissolution of the Union, and that, "As it will 
be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, definitely 
to prepare for a separation." 

When in 1819 Missouri the second State carved out of the 
Louisiana territory applied for admission into the union, a 
proposition was made to attach a proviso prohibiting slavery 
in the new State. This opened up a new question. Thomas 
Jefferson said the news of this novel source of difference 
"startled him like a fire bell at night." The discussion was 
continued into the first session of a different Congress, and 
so agitated the whole country, and so violent was party feel- 
ing that the Union for the first time was seriously threatened. 
While slavery was the all-absorbing evident topic, it was but 



15 



too plain that it was a mere adjunct to the existing sectional 
contest for power. The slave trade could not be reopened ; 
and the aggregate number of slaves would not have been in- 
creased by their removal to a new territory, there would 
have been only a re-distribution. The source of trouble was 
this: if Missouri was admitted as a slave State, in any later 
controversy in which the tolerance of slavery would be made 
a test, she would sympathize and vote with the other slave- 
holding States. The dispute was temporarily adjusted not 
finally settled, by a proviso prohibiting slavery in other 
Louisiana territory North of 36-30 north latitude. This was 
the first time the slavery question was ever mentioned, v de- 
spite the government had passed over thirty eventful years, 
experiencing such cries as the troubles with France in 1793, 
and over Louisiana in 1803, the Alien and Sedition laws, and 
war in 1812, causing the Hartford Convention. 

The old feeling burst forth in all its fury when in 1845 
Texas, having gained her independence, applied for admission 
into the Union of States. This too would be an addition to 
Southern territory and a re-inforcement of the Southern 
party. It was violently opposed by the North, and the ad- 
mission was effected only by a joint resolution of the two 
houses of Congress. By the war that readily followed with 
Mexico vast territory was acquired by the general govern- 
ment in the Rocky Mountain region, and this afforded a sure 
subject for wrangling between the parties. The discussion 
shook every quarter of the governmental fabric. The cele- 
brated "omnibus bill" of 1850 was the temporary compromise 
of the opposing views. The line of 36-30 established by the 
Mo. compromise of 1820 had no peculiar merit in itself but 
had acquired such a prescriptive place in the public mind as 
could not wisely be disregarded. In the Texas territory this 
same line was extended, because it was primarily slave terri- 
tory. But when it came to the vast territory of New Mexico, 
the North would not allow the old line of division ; here she 
would have lost, and not gained ; because little of the terri- 
tory lay above the line mentioned. As a consideration for 
her dictation to new States and her domination over the 
South, the North bounteously promised the more effective 
rendition of fugitive slaves. This was a hack in the back 



16 



1/ 



of the Constitution, it was an admission that fourteen States 
had repudiated their constitutional obligations in their "Per- 
sonal Liberty Laws," and had abrogated the existing law of 
Congress. They rifled us of part of our constitutional rights, 
and paid damages by securing certain others. They robbed 
Peter to pay Paul. This was an indication of what the 
South might expect from her greedy antagonist. 

All discussion of Secession is indissolubly associated with 
slavery. When the Constitution was formed, slavery existed 
in every State in the Union except Mass. No moral or 
sentimental consideration influenced its abolition in the 
Northern States, but this kind of labor was found unsuited 
to the climate and industries of that section. On the other 
hand slavery proved to be profitable in the Southern agri- 
cultural districts and the climate being genial and favorable 
slaves rapidly increased. Owing to the operation of these 
forces, slavery- early assumed a sectional complexion, and 
questions arising out of this fact were the most difficult that 
the Convention of 1787 had to solve. Long debates ensued 
over the proposition to give representation in numerical pro- 
portion to slaves. We find the recognition of slaves in the 
Constitution in three places. (1) In allowing representation 
to 3-5 of slave population, (2) in providing that the importa- 
tion of slaves should not be prohibited prior to 1808, (3) in 
providing for the rendition of fugitive slaves. All Southern 
States had prohibited the importation of slaves before the 
limitation upon Congress expired ; it is true that they were 
often smuggled in by Northern and British ship-masters. 
The few slaves that attempted their escape in the early days 
of the government were readily returned. Not a syllable was 
heard about slavery for thirty years after the establishment 
of the government, not a warning breath from this source 
till 1820, when" the struggle over Missouri startled the nation. 
The means of this transition from common heedlessness to 
universal vigilance on the subject of slavery is most interest- 
ing as showing the tactics of the North. There could be 
found in both sections men who did not believe in the ab- 
stract question of slavery, considered ethically, religiously, or 
economically. But being as wise in one respect as another 
they knew the Federal government had no authority over the 



17 



matter, and contentedly held their peace. Not a few persons, 
however, of the North, prominent among whom was J. Q. 
Adams, a disappointed politician, set up an agitation osten- 
sibly based upon religion and sentimental grounds, against 
the permission of slavery in the territories and new States. 
This movement first attracted attention in 1835, but by 1845 
when Texas applied for admission it had gotten many sup- 
porters in Congress. When before did a religious sentiment 
find expression in Congress? How did it get in there? It 
was simply this : keen politicians at once discovered that the 
existence or non-existence of slavery was one of the most 
characteristic marks of the two sections. They saw that any 
question involving slavery would rally to a man the two sec- 
tions, and its capacity for being made a popular religious fad 
would hide its sectional character. There exists no more re- 
markable evidence of Yankee ingenuity. Thus, slavery was 
made the scapegoat of political aggrandizement and for 
awhile served to veil the hideous features of sectional jeal- 
ousy and hatred. 

As already seen the Constitution, the bond between the 
'•"''different States, recognized property in slaves, and protected 
its existence. Moreover, from the nature of the system the 
domestic institutions of every State are absolute distinct 
from, and independent of, those of any other; yet owing to 
the combined influence of false teaching, and the blindness 
of fanaticism, many honest people of the North came to be- 
lieve themselves responsible for this curse of slavery in the 
Southern States. The opinions of so conservative a body of 
society as the clergy became so contrary that several of the 
great denominations of the country divided into two hostile 
and separate branches representing the political creeds of 
their respective sections. It was towards the territories that 
they bent all their energies to prevent the "extension of slav- 
ery." No scruples would have risen from these sources, if 
they only could have listened to reason. The extension of 
slavery conveys the notion of propagation and multiplica- 
tions, when in reality it could mean only dispersion and 
separation, for the slave trade could not be reopened, and 
slaves could not breed any faster in a new territory than in 
an old state. Again, these people so alive to their moral obli- 

18 



gations, might have appeased their consciences, had they only- 
listened to the Constitution. "Congress shall have power to 
dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations re- 
specting the territory and other property of the United 
States." But it must be remembered that the Constitution 
recognized and guaranteed property in slaves, and Congress 
could never in the eyes of justice and in the name of a re- 
publican government, discriminate between citizens owning 
legal property in the common territory of United States. 
Each territory when it comes to organize itself into a state 
could determine whether it would pursue the slave policy. 
Congress, however, is not sovereign, and holds its powers in 
trust under the Constitution which recognized the citizen's 
right to property in man. The abolition of slavery in the 
organized states involved three very important considerations, 
(i) It was a question of property; two billion of dollars 
were thus invested, and abolition would strike this from the 
country's wealth ; it was claimed, however, that there were 
scarcely over sixty thousand slave owners. (2) It was a 
question of social status; should these four millions of Afi- 
cans, but yesterday removed from their condition of natural 
savagery, become citizens coequal in the enjoyment of politi- 
cal rights and privileges? The great Calhoun whose warn- 
ings to our people speak from the past with the wisdom of 
prophecy, said that liberty "is a reward to be earned, not 
a blessing to be lavished on all alike." This question con- 
cerned the whole of society; and the history of the South 
since emancipation is an undying testimonial to the fallacy of 
universal equality. (3) It was a question of Constitutional 
power; could this United States stretch forth her Constitu- 
tional hand and mould the domestic institutions of a State? 
Had this government, so carefully guarded by our fathers, 
gradually grown into a consuming monster ready to destroy 
the peace, prosperity, and privileges of a state at the will of 
a greedy majority? Be it so, but the South was ready to de- 
fend her rights by a "resistance even unto blood." Yes, there 
was an "impending crisis," a "fixed destiny," an "irrepressible 
conflict ;" section was arrayed against section, government 
against government, and feeling against feeling. 

Upon review of the operative causes of secession we are 



19 



warranted in advancing the following general proposition. 
The Federal legislation for raising revenue burdened one 
section while it enriched another. These laws were insisted 
on, though believed by nearly one-half of the people to be 
unconstitutional. Every occasion of popular excitement had 
its origin in a territorial question, turning on which question, 
feeling would be augmented. The efficacy of the anti-slav- 
ery agitation first manifested itself in 1820 in a sectional 
territorial dispute. The religious scruples of the anti-slavery 
agitators was an unique instance of political fake. Any vio- 
lation of the security of slave holders property and peace 
was to be applauded by religionists of the North. By this 
course of action the sectional equilibrium originally intended 
by the fathers was overthrown, and the North was beginning 
a domination over the South with that unbridled tyranny 
characteristic of a haughty and secure majority. 

The Constitution was made binding upon the judges and 
officers of each state, "anything in the Constitution and laws 
of any state to the contrary notwithstanding." The rendi- 
tion of fugitive slaves was made obligatory upon the states; 
yet fourteen states passed "personal liberty laws," for assist- 
ing the escape of slaves — the legitimate property of Southern 
men. The purpose for which the Constitution was formed 
was no longer secured, but was actually defeated ; therefore, 
because of its existence was undetermined. The parts of 
the Union were being estranged and arrayed against each 
other, instead of being unified and made more perfect. Jus- 
tice was no longer shown in the government. Domestic 
tranquility had given place to John Brown raids, a system 
whereby the peace and prosperity of one section were to be 
plundered and destroyed by insurgents and fanatics, who re- 
ceived "aid and comfort" from the other section. The com- 
mon defense was provided for by most fortifications being 
placed in the North. The blessings of liberty, instead of be- 
ing secured to posterity, had already been transformed into 
the scourge of serfdom for the men of the South. The 
triumphant party had declared itself opposed to the decision 
of the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court of last re- 
sort. Mr. Lincoln, the leader of this party and the success- 
ful candidate for President, had declared that anti-slavery 



20 



sentiments had prevailed in the territories and must next 
"invade the states." In view of the flagrant and palpable vio- 
lation of the Constitution, the instrument of contract and 
the undoubted violation soon to follow, how could the South- 
ern States do otherwise than to secede? They possessed 
full and inalienable sovereignty over the only known units of 
society, and were in duty bound to protect this society. The 
right of self-preservation is ever over and above every other 
right in an organized body. Under the existing form of 
government they could resort to the peaceful method of 
secession ; under other conditions they must have appealed to 
the ever-existent right of revolution. They must protect 
themselves, and they had a right to do so peacefully. 

Again, it follows as a glorious sequel that the men who 
shed their blood in obedience to the call of their states were 
not traitors and rebels, but patriots that have impressed their 
names upon the memory of their sons and of humanity by 
their deeds of unflinching courage and unrivalled heroism. 
Their lost cause together with the record of their glorious 
struggle, is our inheritance ; one sanctified by the memory of 
their suffering and sustained by strength of a rational con- 
viction. The poetry of the soul wells up against the logic of 
events, and cries out in mockery at the dust of hopeless de- 
feat, "Truth though crushed to earth shall rise again." Our 
fathers of the Confederacy are fast crossing over into Eter- 
nal rest; then, let not the righteousness of their cause or 
purity of their motives be measured by the completeness of 
their defeat. 



21 



APPENDIX 



LAW OFFICE OF 

GEORGE B. CROMER 
Newberry, S. C. 

January 18, 1917. 
Hon. J. J. McSwain, 

Greenville, S. C. 
My dear Sir: — 

I appreciate your sending me a copy of your essay on 
"The Causes of Secession." It is an able discussion of the 
subject and would do no discredit to your maturer years. I 
shall be glad to preserve my copy. 

I enclose pamphlet containing an article by Col. Bingham, 
on "Sectional Misunderstandings", reproduced from the 
North American Review. You will find this pamphlet ex- 
tremely interesting, if you are not already acquainted with 
Rawle's View of the Constitution. Until I read Col. Bing- 
ham's article in the North American Review, I had never 
heard of Rawle's book. It is surprising that so many of our 
writers on the subject have overlooked the fact, when Jeffer- 
son Davis, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnson, Stonewall 
Jackson and others, were cadets at West Point, they were 
required to use as a text-book a work that definitely and ex- 
plicitly taught the right of secession. 

Please return this pamplet. 

With kind regards. 

Yours very truly, 
C.B.C.-D. Geo. B. Cromer. 



Lander College 
Greenwood, S. C. 

January 20, 191 7. 
Col. J. J. McSwain, 

Greenville, S. C. 
Dear Sir : 

Thank you very much indeed for the copy of your address. 

22 



Miss Mildred Rutherford, of Athens, Ga., an officer of the 
U. D. C, desired it and I gave it to her. Can you not send 
me another copy for our Library? We will appreciate it 
very much indeed. 
With kindest wishes. 

Sincerely yours, 

John O. Wilson. 



University Oe South Carolina, 

Department Oe History 

Yates Snowden. 

Columbia, S. C, 24th January, 191 7. 

/. /. McSwain, Esq., 

Greenville, S. C. 
My dear Sir: 

I have to thank you for the pamphlet publication of your 
excellent essay on "The Causes of Secession" (1896), and 
especially for the ringing paragraph with which you close 
your introduction (on p. VI). It is not considered good 
form nowadays to attempt to vindicate the right of Secession 
prior to 1861, and that is all that you or I wish to do. I had 
an officer in the Confederate Navy, from S. C, tell me that 
he would be thankful if his sons were not ashamed of his 
record, and in the twelve years I have been here I have 
received seven entrance examination papers which could not 
identify Jefferson Davis ! All of them, as is very proper, 
easily identified Abraham Lincoln. 

The book you seek, The Republic of Republics, was writ- 
ten by B. J. Sage of the New Orleans Bar, and published un- 
der the pseudonymn of "P. C. Centz, Barrister", by Little 
Brown & Co. of Boston. If I mistake not it has had four 
editions and yet it is out of print, and hard to get from the 
old book dealers. I bought the only copy I have ever seen at 
a book auction in New York thirteen years ago, and I shall 
be on the lookout for a copy for you. 

Mr. Sage, strange to say, was from Conn., and sent 
Charles O'Conor of counsel for President Davis, so remark- 
able a brief that he would have been associated with the de- 
fence had the trial for Treason not been dropped. I have 
been told that James B. Campbell, of Charleston, told Presi- 

23 



dent Johnson that the people of the South would welcome 
the trial of Mr. Davis for Treason, because every word of 
that trial would be read at the North, and that the Northern 
people would thus for the first time be made familiar with 
the facts. Evarts and Chase et al probably realized that fact ! 
Mr. Sage also wrote a number of articles in the Southern 
Magazine (Turnbull, Baltimore), along the same line as The 
Republic of Republics; but I do not recall whether under his 
own name, or the rather fanciful "P. C. Centz", — by which 
he meant Plain Common Sense. Albert Taylor Bledsoe ap- 
parently drew much of the material for his short but re- 
markable work, "Is Davis a Traitor?" from Sage's great 
work. Are you familiar with it? A better title would have 
been, "Was Secession a Constitutional Right prior to 1861 ?" 
for Davis is not referred to more than once or twice in the 
book. I wish you would send me eight or ten copies of the 
pamphlet, if you can spare them, and I hope you will send 
copies to every library in the state. 
Again thanking you I am, 

Yours sincerely, 

Yates Snowden. 



Eelison A Smyth 
Greenville, South Carolina, January 20, 191 7. 

Mr. J. J. McSwain, 

Greenville, S. C. 
Dear Sir: 

I am obliged to you for sending me copy of your pamphlet 
on "The Causes of Secession" and which I read last night 
with much pleasure and profit. I have been absent a week 
North and only returned yesterday afternoon but found your 
pamphlet among my mail and started looking it over and 
became so interested in it that I read it, and now take the 
liberty of asking for four additional copies for my four 
grandsons who bear my name, as Iwish to give each one of 
them a copy to read and preserve. I am glad you published 
this very able and interesting article, and you deserve the 
thanks of the community for doing so. 

Yours truly, 

Eelison A. Smyth. 
S-D. 

2d 



Rock Hiee Pupuc Schools 

R. C. Burts, Superintendent 

Rock Him, S. C. 

February I, 1917, 

My dear Mr. McSwain : 

I shall appreciate your sending me a copy of your thesis 
recently printed. I shall be glad to have this on file not only 
for its value as reference but for the sentiment attached to it, 
I recall very well the impression it made upon me when 
you read a selection once in school. 

Sincerely, 

R. C. Burts. 



United States Senate, 
Committee On Navae Affairs 

Washington, D. C, January 25, 191 7. 

Mr. J. J. McSwain, 

Greenville, S. C. 
Dear John : 

I am in receipt of the essay you wrote on "The Causes of 
Secession", and wish to thank you for sending it. 

Although I haven't had time to read it, I sent it to an old 
friend of mine in Illinois and recommended it to him as 
good reading, because of my knowledge of the ability of the 
writer. 

I will thank you to send me a couple more copies if you 
can spare them. 

With best wishes, I am 

Very sincerely, 

B. R. Tieeman. 



United States Senate, 
Committee On Navae Affairs 

Washington, D. C, January 29, 191 y. 

Honorable J. J. McSwain, 

Greenville, S. C. 
Dear McSwain : 

I am in receipt of your letter of January the twenty- 



25 



seventh and thank you for sending me the copies of your 
essay "The Causes of Secession." 

I do not know what your ambition leads to, but in my 
opinion you are well equipped for a Congressional career, and 
it is a splendid field in which service can be done. 

Very sincerely yours, 
BRTjr— g. B - R - Tubman. 

United States Senate, 
Committee On Naval Affairs 

Washington, D. C. February 2, 191 7.. 

Mr. J. J. McSwain, 

Greenville, S. C. 
My dear Sir: 

I am enclosing herewith a letter I have received from an 
old friend of mine in Illinois, which will be of interest to you, 

I know. 

Very sincerely, 

T B. R. TlEEMAN. 

encl. 1. 

P. S. Please return the letter as soon as you have read 

it._B. R. T. 



22nd January, 191 7- 

Dear Mr. McSwain: 

I had planned to go to church yesterday but after rain I 
did not venture out, so passed off day. Picked up your 
"Essay", commenced to read and could not close till last line 
was finished. The close research, study and application show 
brain, Mr. McSwain, and I feel so proud of your efforts and 
success in handling it; giving both North and South what 
justly belongs to them. Let me tell you here, I, with many 
others, are running you for Congress. Yes, sir, the small 
boy in knee pants, whom all his father's friends in Cross Hill 
claimed as "John"— private property belonging to each and 
all of them— then in college your fellow students, especially 
my three nephews, speak and talk of "John McSwain" as if 
he were a brother. Now tell me: have you another copy of 
the Essay? I ask because if can spare copy I have, I want to 
send this one to Edgefield where it will be eagerly read by as 

26 



good friends as you have in Greenville or Laurens. You 
know how Mrs. Swearingen always loved you, and Johnnie, 
George and their sister, Mrs. Swindell, all take the deepest 
interest in all that concerns you. You may not realize it but 
you are a born politician and you should now begin to make 
ready for next campaign and show some people here and in 
Washington what the "Essay writer" can and will do. Had 
no idea of scratching this much, and if you can't decipher 
please burn and know you have lost nothing. Again thank- 
ing you for privilege of going over your views and getting 
references to show "South was right to secede", I am your 
grateful friend, 

F. T. Simpson. 



W. Hampton Cobb 
Attorney At Law 
Columbia, S. C. 

January 20th, 1917. 

Hon. J. J. McSwain, 

Greenville, S. C. 
Dear Mac : 

Your pamphlet, "The Causes of Secession", to hand. I have 
only had time to peruse it. I note that you intended before 
publishing it, to improve upon the original. You acted wisely 
in not carrying out your original design — with all due def- 
erence to your present ability which I fully recognize, ad- 
mire and appreciate. 

I shall file it away among the archives. It reminds me, 
however, that we are twenty years older than when the 
medal was awarded — but I know that each of us have striven 
to make the best of the "twenty years" which are now past 
history. I thank and congratulate you. 

Sincerely, your friend, 

W. Hampton Cobb. 



27 



Adam C. Welborn, 
Attorney and Counsellor at Law 

Greenville, S. C, January 19, 191 7. 

Hon. J. J. Mc Swain, 
Attorney at Law, 
Masonic Temple, 
Greenville, S. C. 
My dear Sir : 

I thank you kindly for the presentation of your Essay on 
"The Causes of Secession." I finished reading it at 11:50 
A. M. today. If you had not told me in the introduction that 
you had published it "without the change of a single word", 
I would not have believed it. It read more like the produc- 
tion of a profound scholar and lawyer than that of a school 
boy in his twenty-first year. Mark a coincidence : Gen R. E. 
Lee was born January 19, 1807. Your medal was delivered 
to you January 19, 1897. You delivered a copy of your 
Essay to me January 19, 1917- 

Very respectfully, 

Adam C. Welborn. 



Dr. J. H. Miller 
General Merchandise 
State Licensed Drug Store Combined 

Cross Hill, S. C, January 22, 191 7. 

Hon John J. McSwain, 

Greenville, S. C. 
Dear John : 

We are in receipt of your kind favor of your reprint of 
your Essay to the U. D. C. while a student in Carolina and 
thank you very much for same. I read it carefully through 
and there is much food for profound thought contained in it. 
Ella and I enjoyed it. I am thinking of sending it to a friend 
that we traveled through Europe and British Isles with in 
1913, who lives in Oklahoma City, Okla. He is a million- 
aire oil field magnate and has been so very kind and 
thoughtful of us, even up to this day. I trust you and all 



2% 



the family are quite well. All here up, but cold and catarrhal 
fever among us. 

Yours sincerely, 

J no. H. Miller. 



The Supreme Court Of South Carolina 

Abbeville, S. C, January 20, 1917. 

Mr. J. J. McSwain, 

Greenville, S. C. 
Dear Mr. McSwain : 

The copy of your address, entitled : "The Causes of Seces- 
sion", which you kindly sent me, has been welcomed, for 
which I beg you will accept many thanks. It is scholarly, 
able and instructive ; and is an important addition to the 
literature on this subject. It was my good fortune to be 
present when it was delivered, and I was then very much 
impressed with it. I then predicted for you a successful 
career in life. 

I take the liberty of enclosing you a copy of an address 
delivered by me on a kindred subject; also, copy of an ad- 
dress delivered by my son Ernest. 

As this is the only copy we have I would be glad if you 
would return it after reading it. I present the other, with 
my compliments. 

With my best wishes. 

Yours truly, 

Eugene B. Gary. 



Hendersons 

Attorneys and Counsellors at Law, 

Aiken, S. C. 

January 30th, 1917. 

J. J. McSwain, Esq., 

Greenville, S. C. 
My dear McSwain : 

I thank you for your attention to my son, and I wish you 
would keep this matter in view, and if you know of any 
place according to what he told you in Greenville that may 



29 



suit him, let us know as I would like to see him settled in 
that territory. 

I thank you for your address on the "Causes of Secession", 
which I have read with great deal of interest. It is excel- 
lent, and your introduction is very fine. I remember dis- 
tinctly hearing the Address delivered in '97, when you got 
the medal for it, but I did not know that the young man 
who delivered it was now my friend, McSwain, of Green- 
ville. 

I am sending you under another cover an address I de- 
livered on the White Man's Revolution. 

Yours very truly, 
dsh-a. D. S. Henderson. 



The State Historical Society Oe Wisconsin 
(trustee oe the state) 
Madison 

February 2, 191 7. 

Mr. J. J. McSwain, 

Greenville, South Carolina. 
Dear Sir: 

On behalf of the Society I wish to thank you for your 
pamphlet on the "Causes of Secession" which you so kindly 
sent to our Library in response to my request of recent date. 

Very truly yours, 

M. M. Quaife, 
mgp Superintendent. 



San Juan Hotee 
Orlando, Florida, March 23rd, 191 7. 

My dear Friend Mr. McSwain : 

At this late hour, I'm writing to express my appreciation 
of your fine article on "Secession" and the causes leading to 
that result. You have combined strength and finish in a 
marked degree and, although written when a college stu- 
dent, it is a masterpiece. I have never read anything more 
logical, or convincing on this subject, which separated the 



30 



two sections of our country so widely apart that fifty years 
have not quite welded the breach. 

I was telling my friend, Mrs. C. E. Graham, about this 
masterly effort of yours and she is anxious for a copy, to 
present to the U. D. C. of Orlando. 

You know this state is submerged by the people from the 
other side of "Mason and Dixon Line" and they need just 
such life savers as this article 'to keep them from being 
drowned out. 

Yours very truly, 

Mrs F. Louise Mayes. 



Union Graded Schools 
Davis Jeeeries, Superintendent 
Union, South Carolina 



April 3, 191 7. 



>i 



Mr. J. J . McSwain, 

Greenville, S. C. 
Dear Sir : 

I have received your essay on "The Causes of Secession 
and thank you very much for your kindness. 

The Daughters of the Confederacy have offered our school 
a medal and your essay will be a great help to us, and we 
are under many obligations to you for sending it. 

Yours very truly, 

Davis Jeffries. 



Columbia, S. C, January 20, 1917- 

Mr. J. J . McSwain, 

Greenville, S. C. 
My dear Mr. McSwain : 

I have read with much interest the marked copy of your 
essay, addressed in my care to Mrs. Horton's late mother, 
Mrs. J. W. Flinn. You have reason to take satisfaction in 
having written in your 21st. year so able an exposition of 
"The Causes of Secession." 

Most of the historical works in Dr. Flinn's library became 
mine, by gift of his heirs, but the book mentioned in the in- 
troduction to your reprint seems not to be among them. I 

31 



remember seeing it but have an impression that for some 
reason it was sent with a few other items from the library 
to the Rev. Cheves Smythe in Czechuan, China. 
With regards and good wishes. 

Very truly yours, 

Mc David Horton. 



Bird Mountain Fruit And Stock Farm 

breeders oe 

Registered Short Horn Cattle and Duroc Jersey Hogs 

Georgetown, Ky., March 18, 1917. 

Mr. J. J. McSwain, 
Greenville, S. C. 
Dear Sir: 

I have read a copy of your essay on "The Causes of Seces- 
sion" and I was so impressed with it that I would like to 
have a couple of copies. One for myself and one for a 
friend of mine. We are interested in American history and 
especially in the Civil War. 

Thanking you for your kind favor I remain, 

Yours truly, 

J. J. Gentry, Jr. 
Box 145, Georgetown, Ky. 



Bailey Military Institute 

R. B. Curry, Headmaster 

Greenwood, South Carolina 

February 20, 191 7. 

Hon J. J. McSwain, 

Greenville, S. C. 
My dear Mr. McSwain : 

I want to thank you for the copy of "The Causes of 
Secession." I have handed this to our professor of history, 
with the instruction that it be used in connection with his 
class room work in American history. 

I was glad to receive a copy of this as I had become in- 



32 



terested in it from reading an editorial in the Columbia State 
about it. 

With very best wishes, I am 

Sincerely, 

Ravenel B. Curry, 
Headmaster. 



Graniteville Graded School 
J. M. O'Neall Holloway, Superintendent 

Graniteville, S. C, February 19, 191 7. 

Hon. J. J. Mc Swain, 

Greenville, S. C. 
My dear Mr. McSwain : 

The best way I can demonstrate my thanks for the favor 
done me in sending me a copy of your essay on "Causes of 
Secession" will be to tell you that I have read, and reread it, 
and unreservedly pronounce it, so far as my limited ability 
admits an argument absolutely unanswerable. 

So have I read Jefferson Davis's "The Rise and Fall of 
the Confederacy", and I regard it also unanswerable from a 
constitutional standpoint. Wish I could read The Republic 
of Republics spoken of in your introductory. 

Again thanking you for 'this interesting and all-informing 
paper, I am, 

Yours very truly, 

J. B. O'Neall Holloway. 



The Carolina National Bank 
op Columbia 

Columbia, S. C, February 19th, 191 7. 

Mr. J no. J. McSwain, 

Attorney at Law, 
Greenville, S. C. 
My dear Friend : 

I received your address, "The Right of Secession", de- 
livered twenty years ago and have read the same with plea- 
sure. You have made a very strong presentation of what 
we have deemed a right under the Constitution and tho that 



33 



right has been denied under the abbitrament of the sword, 
the moral still exists and the truth will always remain. As 
a legal right the argument seems clear as to the practical 
benefit by the assertion of this right is certainly questionable. 
Those questions however are only interesting at this time in 
order to assert the right of those who may have always 
been trained to admire. 

At our Reunion in Columbia two years ago our orator was 
Rev. Wm. E. Boggs who was chaplain of the Sixth Regi- 
ment and a most excellent soldier. I am sending you a copy 
of his address and I know you will read it with interest. 

I am always pleased to hear from you and know that you 
are succeeding in life and making a good name for yourself. 

Yours very truly, 

W. A. Clark. 



Newberry, S. C, March 14th, 1917. 

My dear Mr. McSwain: 

I am enclosing you a copy of some resolutions enthusiasti- 
callly passed by the Drayton Rutherford Chapter U. D. C. 
at its meeting on Tuesday of this week. 

Resolved: That the Drayton Rutherford Chapter U. D. 
C. hereby expresses its appreciation of Mr. J. J. McSwain's 
most excellent presentation of "The Causes of Secession." 
And also its admiration for his patriotic spirit which 
prompted him to publish the pamphlet at his own expense. 

Cordially, 

Kate B. Johnstone, 
Cor. Secty. Drayton Rutherford Chapter U. D. C. 

Wofeord College 
Spartanburg, S. C. 

My Dear McSwain : 

I have glanced over your essay on the "Causes of Seces- 
sion". I shall go back to it with pleasure for a careful read- 
ing. It is convincing and instructive. I congratulate you on 
its writing. You may well take pride in it. I wish with 
your gift of historical insight and statement, you could find 
time to write more. 



34 



Please say to Mrs. McSwain that I enjoyed very much 
my brief home-like stay with you and the little one. Such 
outings, as you suggested do one much good. 

I wish to congratulate you on the work you are trying to 
do in your Sunday afternoon meetings. 
With kind regards. 

Sincerely, 

A. G. Rembert. 

January 27, '17. 



State oe South Carolina 
Department oe Education 

Columbia, January 20, 191 7. 
Hon. J. J. McSwain, 

Greenville, S. C. 
Dear Mack : 

Yesterday's mail brought me a copy of your essay on the 
"Causes of Secession." This pamphlet is highly appreciated, 
and shall be filed among my most valuable papers. I re- 
member distinctly your reading of this essay when you won 
the U. D. C. medal which was awarded you in the Hall of 
Representatives in Columbia. 

With kindest regards and hoping to see you when you are 
next in Columbia, I am 

Yours respectfully, 

John E. Swearingen. 



Report of address in Greenwood, S. C, July 4, 1916, in 
Greenwood Index: 

Mr. McSwain spoke most eloquently and forcefully on the 
subject, "Democracy, the Hope of Humanity." He gave the 
origin of Democracy, declaring that Jesus Christ was the 
first Democrat. He traced this idea through the centuries 
to its culmination in the Declaration of Independence. Mr. 
McSwain emphasized in the second place the influence and 
effect of American Democracy on the world. Within the 
past 140 years since the Declaration of Independence was 
signed, he said, that practically 50 per cent of the world has 
been placed under democratic institutions. 

As a glimpse into the future of Democracy Mr. McSwain 

35 



predicted that the present world war will result in the en- 
largement of Democracy and that in time to come monarchial 
and privileged classes will be a matter of history. 

"The divine right of kings," concluded the speaker, "will 
yield to the divine right of the people." 



The Baptist Courier of January 25, 1917, carried the follow- 
ing: 

"We acknowledge the receipt of a pamphlet entitled 'The 
Causes of Secession.' The author, Mr. J. J. McSwain, one 
of the leading lawyers of Greenville, tells us that it is an 
essay which he wrote while a student of South Carolina 
College, Columbia. He won the prize that was offered ; and 
now twenty years after it was written, without any change, 
he has concluded to give the essay to the public. We began 
to read the address solely because of our high personal re- 
gard for the author, but that motive soon gave way to 
genuine interest in the treatment of his theme. It is a mas- 
terful argument, the best on this subject we have ever read. 
We are not authorized to say that Mr. McSwain will send 
a copy of this essay to any one desiring it ; but if you are 
interested you doubtless could get one by addressing a postal 
to him. It is not offered for sale." 



Editorial in The State (Columbia, S. C), January 21, 1917: 

An Argument Sound and Enduring 

Of the numbers of pamphlets that come to our desk "The 
Causes of Secession," an essay written by John J. McSwain 
while a student in the South Carolina college in 1896 and 
which won the medal offered by the Wade Hampton chapter 
of the Daughters of the Confederacy in that year, is one of 
the most striking in its interest and force. Mr. McSwain, 
when the essay was prepared, was a student from Cross Hill, 
Laurens county, and is now one of the principal lawyers 
of the Greenville bar. He has always found time to devote 
to public service and this early work of his is entirely worthy 
of the more pretentious efforts of his later life which uni- 
formly have been characterized by the display of keen reason- 
ing powers, a vigorous grasp of the subject and power of ex- 



36 



pression. We quote the closing paragraph of the introduc- 
tion to the essay in the pamphlet now published. 

"In order to arouse some interest in the study of history 
among our young people, in order to show that the present 
generation are not the sons and daughters of rebels and 
traitors, in order to show that the four years war from 1861 
to 1865 was a great human sacrifice of life and treasure 
placed upon the altar of human liberty, in order to show 
that the belief in the right of secession was not sectional and 
not selfish, in order to show that the descendants of the 
soldiers of the Confederacy need never apologize for seces- 
sion, but may proudly explain its place in history, I have de- 
cided to publish and to distribute free the following effort of 
the Southern school boy, whose early impressions and convic- 
tions have not been altered by the calmer thought of man- 
hood." 

The quotation, we think, credits the soundness of the 
"school boy's" judgment and of his instruction, too. As the 
years pass, the majority of students who, whether Northern 
or Southern men, agree with his conclusions, is steadily re- 
cruited and enlarged. 



AIM OF AMERICAN LEGION TO PROMOTE TRUE 
AMERICANISM, SAYS CAPT. J. J. McSWAIN 



(From Daily Piedmont) 



Capt. J. J. Mc Swain, one of the organizers of the Green- 
ville post of the American Legion, is in receipt of a letter 
from Arthur Woods, chairman of the national Americanism 
commission cf the American Legion in which he thanks 
Captain McSwain for the stand the latter has taken in re- 
gard to the enforcement of law and order. 

Chairman Woods' letter is the result of a letter written 
several weeks ago by Captain McSwain to Colonel D'Ollier. 
Captain McSwain deplored the fact that certain members 
of the American Legion had felt that they were privileged 
characters and had the right to take the law into their own 
hands on certain occasions. 



37 



The full letter written by Captain McSwain to Colonel 
D'Ollier and in turn has been referred to Chairman Woods 
is as follows : 

As chairman of the executive committee in this state I am 
writing to commend the position taken by you in an inter- 
view warning members of the American Legion against tak- 
ing the law in their own hands, even in causes where their 
motives are worthy and patriotic. 

I am sending a copy of this letter to the state commander 
of South Carolina, suggesting that he bring the matter to the 
attention of the members of the legion in this state. 

In a few cases, some members of the legion through a 
commendable zeal for the high ideals of Americanism, have 
appeared to be impatient of the slow and orderly processes 
of the law. But at the root and in essence, such conduct is 
"lynch law" and is not to be encouraged and will be con- 
doned only in certain extreme cases. Therefore, as a clean 
proposition, it is the duty of the members of the American 
Legion, as it is the duty of every citizen, to uphold the hands 
■of all the officers of the law and to assist such officers in 
the performance of their duty when legally called upon, and 
not to rush in advance of such call. 

We hear much said about Americanism, and ordinarily each 
speaker and writer has in mind his own individual pet theory 
of what is best for America, but as I understand it, that 
Americanism upon which we all must agree is expressed in 
the Declaration of Independence to the effect that govern- 
ment rests upon the consent of the goverened and involves 
the right of the people at any time to alter or abolish an 
existing government by orderly and lawful methods. In 
other words, fundamental Americanism means the right of 
the majority to rule and the duty of the minority to submit; 
but true Americanism involves the right of the minority to 
agitate by lawful means, at the proper time, in the hope of 
converting the minority into a majority. 

Therefore fundamental Americanism is something that 
goes back of the constitution except article five of the consti- 
tution which confers the right of amendment. Under this 
article, it is possible for a majority of the American people, 
proceeding lawfully, to amend and alter every other part of 



38 



the constitution so that the form of government would be 
entirely different from that we now have. Some very funda- 
mental and far reaching amendments have been adopted in 
recent years. 

Therefore, I respectfully submit that the highest concep- 
tion of true Americanism enjoins us to be tolerant of the 
words, either written or spoken, of other American citizens 
whose particular views do not harmonize with ours. So 
long as an American citizen merely agitates by speech or pen, 
and does not resort to or encourage resistance to the con- 
stituted authorities and seeks merely to influence political ac- 
tion looking to an amendment to our constitution, then, I 
again respectfully submit such citizen is within his rights and 
it is our duty not only to be tolerant ourselves but to protect 
him in the exercise of those rights. 

I trust therefore, that you will from time to time in the 
future, emphasize the thought already expressed by you that 
members of the American Legion will do the organization 
harm, and will do the cause of true Americanism harm if 
they should ever resort to extra-legal and violent methods 
of enforcing their own views in particular cases, or of sup- 
pressing the views of others. The aim of the American Le- 
gion is to promote true Americanism. The essence of Amer- 
icanism is Democracy as expressed in the Declaration of In- 
dependence ; the life of Democracy is freedom of thought 
and speech. Freedom of thought and speech involves a mu- 
tual duty of toleration. 

Yours very truly, 

J. J. McSwain, 
Chairman, 



39 



COTTON TAX 



"From 1863 to 1868 there was collected from the citizens 
of the Southern State a cotton tax, amounting in the aggre- 
gate to $68,072,388.99, an itemized statement of which I sub- 
mit herewith. This statement shows the sums of money 
realized by the Government under the various acts levying a 
tax on cotton. (Said tax was unconstitutional.) 

"1863 $ 35i,3H48 

"1864 1,268,412.56 

"1865 1,772,983.48 

"1866 18,409,654.90 

"1867 23,769,078.80 

"1868 22,500,947-77 

Total $68,072,388.99" 



40 



. / 



H12Z 75 589 








► «' 



- W : 




^0^ 




H°<* 


















o 






/ ^\ 







% 











H '■ % / . ;-. % J A 



% 



S 









%. 









s 










^ 









vi\ 



2 
O 



e> 









++# 






e i n 




' «• 



\ ^ <^ ^^P' ^ 







^^ N.MANCHESTER. 






,^ % 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





D D S 5 5 4 3 b 1 












a 
1 

HH i 
88&S58WHS 1 

lliM 

ill 
■ I Hi 

■HI 



